408 Breathless

[HerrSchreck]

And HerrSchreck, come on. Low-budget or not, this is undeniably a masterpiece.

"Masterpiece" for some can be a very impersonal term (an objective belief that a film achieves an almost holy level of rare technical perfection, that all can agree upon), or a very personal term for others (subjective belief about the atomic level of emotional impact). The first would be Potemkin for most people-- I rarely hear emotional testimony about the flick (excepting the Odessa Staircase, of course).. it's all about the technique. The latter would be something like Casablanca... which in it's technique resembles a thousand other melodramas.

I'm definitely not consistent enough to say I subscribe to some special theory. But I just don't get superexcited about the technique in Breathless, and I'm not hugely impacted by it on the emotional plane either. It's a fun, cool ride with a sort of do-it-yourself feel to it.

I think I enjoy this film more than the rest of JLG because he seems more interested in his narrative than in what he can do with the narrative/convention.. and what other people who make films, and those who comment on films for a living, will think about what he did with the narrative/convention.

He reminds me in this film a bit of someone whose films I really enjoy, who most people think I'm nuts for getting so heavily into: Dwain Esper, the exploiteer from the 30's (and later). Esper was another guy who had no past in making films, and bought a studio/filmmaking equipment on a financial default and suddenly had the ability to make features (granted, they were z films that toured in the salacious rears of carny's, cruddo theaters, etc). This resulted in some incredibly strange features with some, er, rather unique obsessions. Most people can't stand the first five minutes of them or follow them at all, they're so disjointed and unprofessional. I love them to death. Maniac/Narcotic, and Marihuana-- the Weed With Roots In Hell are some of the most watched discs in my collection.

Breathless, though nowhere near as formally inept, reminds me of some of those films by Esper-- a guy with little to no formal experience making films brings a dazzling freshness to the medium. And it works well (for me, I mean-- especially viz Esper). But as for masterpiece, neither the technique or the emotional impact (or level of engagement) registers profoundly enough to call it a masterpiece. I find it fresh, a lot of fun, and pretty damned cool. It's when the refreshing newcomer departs from this exciting entre, and suddenly leaps to the JLG that JLG became, that I exit from the back door. There's just not enough chops for me to-- and this is all very personal, mind you-- take the dialog with a straight face.

[karmajuice]

I enjoyed your re-evaluation of Breathless, Michael. I agree with much of what you say (though I'm a bit more Seberg-centric ), and I think you say it very well. Still, I have some things I'd like to add.

I adore Breathless. I have only seen it twice (and the second viewing only recently), but I always mention it if anyone asks me about my favorite films. I had already seen one Godard before Breathless (Two or Three Things I Know About Her). I was already into cinema and studying film. But seeing Breathless for the first time, I understood why I loved cinema.

We can talk about how elements of Breathless influenced subsequent films -- would Kubrick have used his radical jump cut in 2001: A Space Odyssey if Breathless had never existed? Would handheld cameras and location shooting be as ubiquitous as they are today?
We can talk about films before Breathless that used "its" techniques before it existed -- thereby robbing it of its influence? I hear this argument alot, that the supposedly revolutionary techniques used in Breathless and Citizen Kane had "been done before". It is, to an extent, true.

But --

Discussing those topics would be missing the point. I don't mean to disparage the influence of the film and the work of films that came before it, they're certainly important in their own right, but that is not what makes Breathless great.

I love Breathless because its "techniques" are not merely techniques: they are the film. They are internalized.
Other films use techniques to form a narrative or to convey a mood. Breathless transcends that limitation and becomes pure cinema. Its techniques are largely unobtrusive, but it could not exist without them. Most films use technique to convey a story. Breathless uses story to convey a technique. (I know I'm using the word an awful lot, bear with me.)

I perceive Breathless as a masterpiece of editing, and while a range of its qualities are famed (the score, location shooting, the stars, the spontaneity, the love of cinema), I believe the jump cut is the soul of the film. The film is embodied by this technique, it's the singular element which defines the film more than anything else. To me, the film feels like a series of moments, almost like one extended moment (as the title suggests) -- this effect is achieved by the jump cut. The peripheral elements I mentioned before reflect the nature of the jump cut, like the jazz score and the spontaneity. The film's attitude derives not only from the coolness of the characters, but from the radically omissive editing (which dictates that we see only the moments worth seeing, their coolest moments): the film itself develops an attitude that reflects the carefree and even volatile nature of the characters.

In summary: It isn't that Breathless uses these techniques, it's how it uses them. I don't think any film I've seen has integrated cinematic technique so effectively and so naturally (hyperbole, yes, but I stand by the statement).

That became a bit more technical/academic than I had intended, I only wanted to give my impression of the film, but I think that reading is essential to understanding my perspective. In saying that, I've maybe failed to convey just how deeply I love the film, for reasons I cannot express or define. I do love it, and these ideas and theories are merely an attempt to understand my passion for it.

(I may write more about this later. This is the first time I've tried to write these thoughts into a coherent statement, and I'm still trying to figure out how to express them.)

[colinr0380]

I perceive Breathless as a masterpiece of editing, and while a range of its qualities are famed (the score, location shooting, the stars, the spontaneity, the love of cinema), I believe the jump cut is the soul of the film. The film is embodied by this technique, it's the singular element which defines the film more than anything else. To me, the film feels like a series of moments, almost like one extended moment (as the title suggests) -- this effect is achieved by the jump cut. The peripheral elements I mentioned before reflect the nature of the jump cut, like the jazz score and the spontaneity. The film's attitude derives not only from the coolness of the characters, but from the radically omissive editing (which dictates that we see only the moments worth seeing, their coolest moments): the film itself develops an attitude that reflects the carefree and even volatile nature of the characters.

I agree with that but would say that I don't really see any philosophical difference between Breathless and Godard's later work, despite this film having had a greater accessibility for audiences. It may have hit a chord with the 'cool factor' but many Godard films take understood genre conventions, and eventually the medium of film itself, and uses them in an unexpected way.

Breathless ignores the crime element for a long period to detail the couple's relationship. Band of Outsiders similarly spends more time with what it is interested in - the love triangle and set piece scenes of characters hanging out togehter than the relatively perfunctory heist which is treated as the slim thread by which the plot is strung together and which brings closure to the narrative.

I get the impression that Godard gets more and more bored by even the slight constraint of these conventions getting in the way of the material he is more interested in, so you get something like the semi-musical of Une Femme est une Femme, the perfunctory death of the main character at the end of Masculin Feminin (used again mostly to provide the semblance of narrative closure and emotional resonance that would be the main focus of any other film, but which has been ignored during the rest of the film for small, seemingly insignificant conversations and arguments over aspect ratios) or the full blown apocalypse of Weekend that actively tries to destroy sympathetic characters, narrative arcs and the whole structure of film. For me Contempt is the masterpiece of early Godard in that it is where the critique of film making and the structure of film is at its most obvious, yet it still contains what could be considered a satisfying and emotionally engaging structure buried under its surface.

[karmajuice]

Did I say there was a philosophical difference between those films? (That's a serious question, I certainly didn't mean to say or imply that.) Or were you just riffing off of what I said?

I haven't seen enough Godard to form a solid image of his work as a whole (Breathless, Band of Outsiders, Two or Three Things I Know About Her, Weekend, In Praise of Love, and an incomplete viewing of Masculin Feminin), but based on my experience I would have to agree with you. His (genre) narrative is often left in the background, sometimes virtually irrelevant; that's actually one of the things I loved most about Breathless when I first saw it. Now, I wouldn't necessarily say that the use of genre conventions throughout his film work indicates that his films don't differ, philosophically -- they have similar elements that are used to various effects. They certainly have common techniques and ideas, I just think Breathless integrates them more deeply. I also think that Breathless is more concerned with viewership and the effects of cinema, rather than genre.

[GringoTex]

His (genre) narrative is often left in the background, sometimes virtually irrelevant; that's actually one of the things I loved most about Breathless when I first saw it.

Narrative is left in the background, but genre was always front and center for Godard until 1966. He breaks genre conventions not to show their weakness but to show their strength. Godard was not rebelling against classical genre; he only wanted to integrate it with an uber-personal reality. After 1966, of course, everything changed.

The Nouvelle Vague crowd never understood narrative anyway. They were in awe of Hollywood screenwriters who could formulate multi-layered and coherent plots, and Truffaut spoke of the difficulty they all had in their Cahiers days summarizing the plot of a Hollywood film for their reviews.

[LQ]

Gringo, can you elaborate on why '66 was the turning point?

Michael, I'm thrilled that you enjoyed it so much I have not seen that Denis film, I'll look into it.

[GringoTex]

Gringo, can you elaborate on why '66 was the turning point?

I don't know why exactly, except that Godard's politicization began well before May '68. The two films he shot in 1966, Two or Three Things I Know About Her and Made in U.S.A. reflect this politicization and Godard's abandonment of genre.

[Michael]

karmajuice, that was a great post you wrote specificially about the techniques. My mind is still pretty wrapped up with certain elements of the film and still haven't thought much about the techniques yet. Please do continue writing about Breathless. I'm still very intrigued.

LQ, I think you will fall in love with Claire Denis. Start with Friday Night.

[LQ]

heh this should probably make its way over to the Godard thread, but I've got to clarify-was Made In the USA really that far away from basic genre constraints? Its been a long time since I've seen this, but I seem to remember it had somewhat of a spy/thriller construct.

Oh, I do indeed love me some Denis! I've seen all too few of her films though..I'll pick up Friday Night, tonight!

[GringoTex]

heh this should probably make its way over to the Godard thread, but I've got to clarify-was Made In the USA really that far away from basic genre constraints? Its been a long time since I've seen this, but I seem to remember it had somewhat of a spy/thriller construct.

Godard claimed it was a remake of The Big Sleep, but he's no longer concerned with the genre conventions. Breathless feels like a crime film, Une Femme feels like a musical, Alphaville feels like sci-fi, Pierrot feels like lovers-on-the-run, etc. but Made in the USA doesn't feel like a noir/detective film.

[LQ]

Thanks for the clarification...a new print is playing at Film Forum in Jan. Guess I'll have to revisit it!

[jdcopp]

Anne Wiazemsky is usually credited with Godard's radicalization.

[ellipsis7]

Godard synopsises MADE IN USA (in Le Nouvel Observateur, 1967)...

Having just seen once more THE BIG SLEEP with Humphrey Bogart, I had the idea of a film in which a Humphrey Bogart role would be played by a woman, in this case Anna Karina. I also wanted the film to take place in France and not the USA, and I linked the theme with an obscure and marginal episode of the Ben Barka affair. I imagined that Figon wasn't dead, but had taken refuge in the provinces, and had written to ask his girlfriend to join him. She comes to meet him at the agreed place, and when she arrives, finds him really dead. I set my film in 1969, two years after the legislative elections of last March. Instead of being called Figon, my character is called Politzer. No one knows why he has been killed, and his girlfriend sets out to discover Politzer's past...

** Mehdi Ben Barka (born 1920 – disappeared October 29, 1965) (Arabic: المهدي بن بركة‎) was a Moroccan politician, head of the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces (UNPF) and secretary of the Tricontinental Conference. An opponent of Hassan II, he "disappeared" in Paris in 1965. As of 2008, the Ben Barka Affair has not been completely clarified, and investigations are on-going. In a 1967 trial in France, two French officers were sent to prison for their role in the kidnapping. However, the judge ruled that the main guilty party was Moroccan interior minister Mohamed Oufkir. Georges Figon, a witness with a criminal background who had testified earlier that Oufkir stabbed Ben Barka to death, was later found dead, officially a suicide.

** MADE IN USA was Godard's last film with Karina. however he did not give it his exclusive attention, filming it alongside TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER - he filmed MADE IN USA in the mornings and TWO OR THREE THINGS in the afternoons of the same days... Interesting also that in the Godard & Karina doc on CC's PIERROT LE FOU there is no mention of MADE IN USA, rather the picture prefers to peak on PIERROT as the pinnacle of their relationship and work together, with MADE IN USA forming something of an unmentioned coda to it all...

** While it is set in 1969, MADE IN USA was made in 1966, so Godard was unaware of the May 68 protests...

[colinr0380]

Did I say there was a philosophical difference between those films? (That's a serious question, I certainly didn't mean to say or imply that.) Or were you just riffing off of what I said?

No. I quoted you because I agreed with what you were saying about the form being the key rather than the content, which is quite a different thing from what the posts further above seemed to be implying that somehow Godard 'had it' with Breathless and then lost it following that. The approach he took with Breathless had the (good?) fortune to be more accepted as 'cool' and struck a chord with wider audiences than his later work but to me that seems more of a byproduct of his manipulatons of the medium of film than a calculated attempt to do that. He lucked out in capturing a zeitgeist and a young audience both for better (in that it created his name and fan base) and worse (in that it was just as constraining as the genre constraints he upended with Breathless, causing him to push with more and more anger and less playful intent against this until the forcible professional suicide of Weekend).

Again, this is only my opinion.

[LQ]

You hit the nail on the head when you say he "lucked out"; that Breathless succeeded as much as it did is truly serendipitous.

...that seems more of a byproduct of his manipulatons of the medium of film than a calculated attempt to do that.

You're exactly right. For all its fame and influence, the jump cut wasn't something that Godard purposed to employ, it was used out of necessity. To cut down the original length of over 2.5 hours he almost arbitrarily cut into the film stock, taking out anything that was unnecessary to the story.
Even though it is far from my favorite Godard, I also agree with you that Contempt is probably his masterpiece, for all the reasons you mentioned above.

[Michael]

colin, I think we all can agree that it's a great thing that a nearly 50 year old art film like Breathless continues to rejuvenate generation after generation. When it comes to the so-called revolutionary, influential or ground breaking films, I prefer this over Citizen Kane by miles.

I tried to warm up again to Pierrot le fou this morning, it's still a tour de force of luminous visuals and music. Very rambling and dense "greatest hits", like Wong's 2046.

But I really love the simplicity and engimatic quality of Breathless and because of that, the horrible betrayal and bittersweet loss/resignation of love and dream burns right through. There is a scene or two that makes me think the couple is really in love and Seberg (and the film) turns back to you without explaining why she ends up betraying Belmondo. What a gorgeous fuck-you that is.

[ellipsis7]

BREATHLESS is a great movie, but there's the hand of Truffaut there too - he wrote the original story, and it relates clearly to his early pre-Hitchcock fixation work too... PIERROT is perhaps the apotheosis of Godard's sixties films - where he mixes his conflicted passion for Karina with pastiche and palmipsest - the layering of several texts on top of one another, bits of each up on pop on top, in this case the ultimate modernist or post-modernist form where comic books can be juxtaposed with great philosophy, poltical paranoia, real relationship, media reference, advertising slogan, gangster movies, impressionist painting, guns, car crashes and stunning Riviera landscape, to name just a few...

[aox]

Breathless might be Godard's best film and it certainly is his most important work for reasons given throughout this thread, but I actually think I prefer Band of Outsiders and Contempt.

[Tootletron]

I watched this last night for the first time and really liked it. One thing stuck out for me - the poster of the Renoir painting she hangs up on her wall. I recognized it because I have a print of it hanging downstairs, but I've never been able to find out the name of it. Anyone know? Google tells me it's "Head of a Young Girl, 1894" but I can't find any confirmation on that.

edit: Nevermind, I found it. It's called "Mlle Irène Cahen d'Anvers", made in 1880 probably. Even though it didn't contribute much to the thread, hey, at least you know the name of that painting if you didn't.

[knives]

I don't think it's a masterpiece, I think it's a fun little low budget film with a lot of balls.

I just saw this, first Godard, and I have to agree with it 100%. It was good, or at least good enough for me to continue with my Godard education. Outside of the 'cool' factor though there really wasn't much to keep my interest. I'll probably see either Le Petit Soldat or Alphaville next as those seem more my sort of thing and It looks to me the Godard is more talented then what I saw in Breathless just now.

[Michael]

Nice piece by A.O. Scott on Rialto's 50th Anniversary restoration of Breathless.

[Michael]

Maybe your comments can enlighten me. Help my little adzuki brain! With the new theatrical release of Breathless, it's nice to see fresh discussions and reviews popping up here and there throughout the Internet. I noticed the same old trend: Breathless is the birth of "modern cinema". That annoys me. But I could be very wrong about that. I can certainly see why it was revolutionary.

Look at the films released the same year as Breathless: La dolce vita, L'avventura and Psycho.

They are all just as modern. They broke rules and still influence artists to today. What makes Breathless more special ?

[Roger Ryan]

I'm sure someone else can provide a more eloquent critique, but I can think of two relatively simple things that made BREATHLESS unique (and arguably revolutionary):

1) Jump-cuts. If not the first, BREATHLESS drew attention to the now-common device of using hard edits to show the passing of time (and/or mood changes) from the same or similar camera set-up. Before BREATHLESS, this device was considered bad continuity; now, it generally goes unnoticed since you see the effect used in everything from romantic comedies to diaper commercials. The way Coppola shot and edited Willard's nervous collapse in the Saigon bedroom at the beginning of APOCALYPSE NOW is a sublime example of jump-cuts done well.

2) Self-consciousness. There are many previous examples of filmmakers including subtle (or maybe not so subtle) homages to other films in their work, but BREATHLESS is brazenly self-conscious about this. The repeated "wiping the fingers across the lips" motion (an homage to Bogart) done directly to the camera is like a middle-finger to the audience, deliberately attempting to break the suspension of disbelief to remind the viewer that this is a movie and it is like other movies that have come before.

EDIT: My apologies to "karmajuice" and others who have already addressed "jump-cuts" and other aspects of BREATHLESS from a year or two back. My intent was to summarize these two ideas for "Michael" (who was perhaps unfamiliar with what the term "jump-cut" meant?), not to be redundant.

[Michael]

Thanks, Roger. I just can't see how Breathless is any more revolutionary or modern than La dolce vita, L'avventura and Psycho. It's just that each of those films has a different "attitude".

If there is one guy who truly invents "modern cinema" as we know today, it's not Godard, it's Kenneth Anger. But that's another discussion.

[Roger Ryan]

I tend to agree somewhat. I'm not a great admirer of BREATHLESS, but it was chosen as the benchmark French New Wave film early on, so I believe other filmmakers were influenced by its attitude and/or techniques until these things became part of the general vocabulary of cinema. I prefer the Fellini, Antonioni and Hitchcock films over Godard's, but these more mainstream releases did not possess the brazen self-consciousness of BREATHLESS nor did they inadvertently emphasize a new way of cutting.

Speaking of cutting techniques, I always thought that Hitchcock's "zoom cut" - hard edits to successively tighter shots from the same camera position - was a marvelous device and very disturbing. Once the zoom lens came into fashion, filmmakers opted for the simpler "whip zoom" and quickly overused it. Hitchcock's approach was much more effective in my opinion.